2 Years Later - Remembering Elsa

This is Matt. I'm going to start a message on today's two year anniversary of our surgery in Cinncinnati and Melissa is going to follow with her message.

This anniversary is a lot easier then the last anniversary. It's largely because we're so happy with Bea. She's just so much fun and a great distraction. Time also is mending my heart, but I don't think I ever want it to mend fully and don't think it will. It's still crazy to stop and think that Bea has an identical twin and to wonder what that would be like and what'd she be like. Through all of our ultrasounds we easily determined Bea was the lively twin with all of the energy and that matches with her current personality and mannerisms. Elsa was the more mature and reserved twin. Thus I'd expect her to act that way. Just this morning Bea was hiding her spoon in her high chair from me then would go "Where's spoon" with her arms up and hands out and a questioning face with raised brows, when I'd say "I don't know" she'd snatch the spoon out and say "Here it is" and then laugh three times "ha, ha, haaaa.". That's Bea. Elsa would be something different.

Two nights ago I walked Bullet and the star constellation that I think Melissa has identified as Elsa's constellation was staring right at us through down the street between the tall trees and right above the horizon. It was over the nature center with limited moon so it was extremely bright. It made me feel very warm and like Elsa was saying hi. I said hi to her. I love that constant reminder.

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This is Melissa. It’s too bad the sky is so cloudy tonight and we can’t see the stars. Grandma Liz and Grandpa Dick sent us the most amazingly perfect card for today, it says:

Just before you go to bed tonight,

Look out your window…

See that one little star shining down just for you?

Every time it twinkles, it’s me saying I love you and I miss you,

And I can’t wait until you’re here with me again.

Today was such a busy day for work that I felt guilty and sad that I wouldn’t be able to spend too much time on Elsa, but as I was leaving the house at 6:30 this morning, two little deer ran in front my car and one stopped to look. She probably stayed in front of my car for 30 seconds. I know the deer were too young to be the twins I used to associate with Bea and Elsa two summers ago, but I still thought it was Elsa sending me a “hello” and telling me it was ok to go about my day.

Elsa is still with me every day. Sometimes consciously, sometimes she shows up in my unconscious – and sometimes I just look at Bea and think, “Wow. There could have been two of them.”

I used to dream about Elsa a lot. Elsa and Bea as 5- or 6-year-olds riding bikes by a lake was a pleasant recurring dream for awhile. I really haven’t been dreaming much at all lately, though, except for a dream I had the other morning that I will never forget. The majority of the dream was a horrible nightmare. The first thing I remember was Matt telling me that, “The baby is gone.” I assumed he meant Bea, and I was frantically running through this unfamiliar, large building – sobbing and angrily pushing over furniture and slamming doors. I was going through the motions of searching, but I knew somehow that I wasn’t going to find her.

Eventually, I flung open the doors to a large patio overlooking a beautiful valley and saw a nicely dressed lady leaning on a railing looking over the valley. It was sunny and warm, but I was still angry and I shouted to the woman, “Do you have my baby!?” As the lady slowly turned to face me, she said “yes” with a drawl that distinctly belonged to my Grandma Marcie. It was when I saw the wide smile and the sunshine lighting my Grandma’s healthy face that I realized the baby I was searching for was Elsa. With a twinkle in her eye, Grandma said, “Yes, she’s with us and we SO enjoy having her there. She’s JUST beautiful.” Right at that point the real-world Bea woke me up. It was morning. At the time, I was disoriented, exhausted, and just relieved that Bea was safe. But, in the last few days I’ve come to realize how lucky I am that I know both Grandma and Elsa are warm, safe, and happy, too.

I wish the same to everyone who is reading this blog and missing someone special.

Catching Up

Tonight is my last night before I start a new MBA class, and I said I would make a new post before I started so here I go. It's been a very busy and hectic break, just in the last week or two does it seem like any rest occurred. November and December were extremely busy. I'll highlight some of my favorite recent, and one not so recent events:

Culvers: This is not so recent. On the way back from Appleton in December we stopped by Culvers for lunch. We washed our hands and got Bea settled into a high chair while I was ordering food for all of us. I was at the counter and turned around to see Bea and Melissa sitting all the way across the restaurant within eye sight, and when Bea saw me she started yelling "Matt! Matt! Maaaaaatttttt!" as loud as she could. See when we were in Appleton Melissa was changing Bea in a seperate room and to get attention she yelled "Matt!". Thus now Bea yells "Matt" when I'm far away and needs to get my attention.

After I returned with the food at Culvers I was cutting up Bea's vegetables and somehow Bea had managed to reach across the table and steal a couple of fries under my arm without me looking at it, and we've rarely given her fries before. Very sneaky...and smart. After polishing off our food we needed to burn energy for the rest of the 2 1/2 hour ride home, so we started to walk around the restaurant. A recent fun game is to put our hands together behind our backs and waddle like a duck while going "quack, quack, quack..". Bea did quacked as loud as she could and waddled as much as she could with me back and forth the restaurant for several minutes, at least, to the amusement of many.

Zoo: Two weekends ago we went to the indoor section of the zoo for the first time. We have a family pass and saw the tropic (warm animal) and aquatic exhibits. Bea was extremely happy and loved everything, with the freedom to run around and look at stuff (that is meant to be touched by toddlers so there were limited "no's"). By the time we finished the tropics she was pretty wore out and the aquatic sections went quicker as we needed to hustle her home for food and a nap. Her favorite animal may have been a simple duck. They were doing a lot of paddling and diving for food. Melissa and I thoroughly enjoyed it all.

Zoo 2: The past weekend we went to the zoo with Bea's cousin Sadie (and my sister and brother-in-law). Bea and Sadie had a great time. Similarly to the first zoo visit, one if the favorite things (maybe better then the animals) was a little tunnel/cave about 38 inches tall that they went in and out of and played for a solid 10 minutes with many other toddlers about 30-34 inches in height, it was very amusing for all.

Edinborough Park: Nearby is a large indoor play area/park with trees, etc. There is a four story climbing and slide area for the kids. There's also a much smaller toddler section to climb on with a slide. We've gone there twice in the last month. Bea can do well on the toddler slide but it's not easy to climb up on. I then took he on the smallest intermediate slide with me (about 10 feet tall and 40 feet long). We did that many times. On the second trip without Melissa, I could tell Bea really wanted to do the slide by herself, and since it wasn't very slippery like the first time I used my instinct and gave her a push. I followed right behind her. She LOVED it. At the very end she was a little scared then stopped at the end of the slide and when I came down she giggled histerically then ran as fast as she could to the beginning of the slide - which is a lot of work for both of us. There is a lot of climbing up and around things to get to the first level. After about 7 more times we were both tired and Bea had to give up as she couldn't crawl up anymore.

Then we made our way to a large gym area with lots of BALLS and little carts that spin around. Bea enjoyed the "BALLS" the most and also stacking the cones (like road construction cones) and pushing the cones around because she saw another kid do it. She also likes to grab whatever ball, toy comes rolling her way and abandoning her current toy. So while pushing the cones on a cart a ball rolled away from another kid and Bea immediately stopped and grabbed that ball. The other kid without missing a beat grabbed the cart and cruised off. You should have seen the look at Bea's face. It was puzzlement, anger, confusion, embarassment... I laughed and told her that's what happens when you try to scam other kids toys, it happens to you back.